Nashville Cooks: Food, music make for happy marriage

Move South brings couple culinary adventure

Mar. 6, 2012

Kathryn and Grant Johnson recently whipped up a zesty risotto accompanied by a dish of sauteed kale and roasted carrots with parsnips. The couple enjoys cooking together, and Kathryn blogs about the dishes they create. / GEORGE WALKER IV/THE TENNESSEAN/photos by GEORGE

Written by

Jennifer Justus

The Tennessean

ABOUT THE SERIES

Cooking is nothing to be afraid of! It’s easier and cheaper than you would imagine, and more healthy than eating out or buying prepared foods. In our Nashville Cooks series, we visit the home of one family each month who will teach us how to prepare a traditional family meal that’s healthful, inexpensive, easy and made from scratch. At each session we put a meal on the table, but we also reconnect with the fun of cooking. Part 19: Kathryn and Grant Johnson,food blogger and musician

Grant Johnson slid through his kitchen and snagged an aged Gouda and herbed biscuit off a plate.

“I’m gonna have one,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about them all day.”

And how could he not. The woodsy scent of rosemary filled Johnson’s home — mixing nicely with the old-time country playing softly on the stereo.

But even beyond the biscuits, Grant’s wife Kathryn Johnson had baked an apple pie (her grandmother’s recipe) and she’d soon zest a fragrant lemon for a pot of risotto.

The Johnsons had invited us to their Inglewood home for our Nashville Cooks series, and they showed us how preparing a hearty and healthful meal from scratch can be a breeze.

“I talk about food all the time,” Kathryn said.

Different approaches

Though Kathryn handled the baking, the cooking in the Johnson home seems to be a team effort.

“We have a pretty good thing,” Grant said.

Kathryn learned her way around the kitchen with her mother, and Grant cooked for a sorority house while in college at the University of Arizona. When he steps to the stove, he does so like a man on a mission.

“What am I cooking in the butter?” he asked her, assessing the pots on the stove.

“I really just started it because I had all these food photos, and I thought it was a great way to keep up with recipes,” she said.

Grant taught her the basics of the risotto, but she added her own twist while working on a blog post about foods that help alleviate stress. Saffron, which she added to the dish, can help alter mood for the better. And even with the risotto’s comforting consistency, it dazzles with lemon and tomato.

“I loved all the bright colors, especially for winter,” she said.

So as the Johnsons sauteed carrots and parsnips in butter, and began the steady stirring process of making risotto, they told their story of making the move to Nashville.

A happy accident

Kathryn grew up in Clemson, S.C., and then went to Athens for a fine art photography degree at the University of Georgia. She later moved to Seattle, where she met Grant. And in quintessentially Seattle fashion, it happened over coffee.

Grant and Kathryn said hi to one another in their neighborhood coffee shop nearly every morning for two years. But Grant thought Kathryn had a boyfriend. When he learned the man was a roommate instead, the rest, as they say, is history.

When Kathryn wanted to move back South, Nashville seemed a natural fit. Grant, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest with a family of working-class Norwegian musicians, had country deep in his blood and a knack for guitar and pedal steel.

The Johnsons sold their home in Seattle and moved here on a wing and a prayer. They found their home in Inglewood within a week and Grant found a pedal steel job two days before arriving. Meanwhile, Kathryn took what she thought would be a semi-temporary job at The Turnip Truck.

“I kinda had a panic the first two weeks. ‘Where are we gonna get our food?’ ” she said.

Six years later, she’s still there as marketing coordinator.

“I totally believe in what we sell, and a natural food grocery store is something I can feel good about,” she said. “I believe good, organic food is so important for our bodies, and I admire so many of our small and local farmers, cheese makers and artisans.”

She’s worn many hats at Turnip Truck, from ordering food to overseeing the cheese selection.

“I guess I just think about food, and create my shopping list all day long,” she said of how her job plays into her love for cooking.

Grant reminded her, though, that her mother called her a food lover from the get-go. Kathryn would ask what’s for dinner during another a meal.

“I weighed 60 pounds less when I met her,” he said, offering perspective.

Taste for adventure

But Kathryn does what she can to keep it healthy. Along with the risotto, we had root vegetables and kale sauteed with currants and almonds.

“I love the challenge of making healthy food fun. I know I could eat healthier and take it to an extreme, but I still love food — the taste, the colors, the textures — and I never want to take the fun out of it,” she said. “I try to create the best of both worlds — the foodie yummy side and the healthy good-for-us side. One thing I find is that when you buy really good quality vegetables grown with love, you hardly have to do anything at all to them in order for them to taste really good. Sometimes simple is best.”

Kathryn recently posted an entire blog on ways to prepare turnips, for example.

Southern flavor

As the kale sizzled in a hot pan, and the Arborio rice soaked up the final bits of broth and wine for the risotto, it seemed everyone in the room had eaten at least two biscuits.

“When we figured out we were gonna move to the South,” Grant said, “I wanted to learn to cook Southern food.”

So he tried his hand at biscuits first, but failed.

“Kathryn did it, and it was like — boom,” he said. “I got my act together and learned to smoke a pork butt.”

“And shrimp and grits,” Kathryn interjected.

“That’s kind of a team effort,” he said.

And true, when it comes to Southern food, Kathryn might have the edge. When Grant brought a group of friends from Seattle to Nashville, Kathryn showed them a Southerner’s take on fish by serving catfish sandwiches (a la Eastside Fish in East Nashville) with Buttermilk Pie.